Opposition leader raises specter of sexism in Netanyahu, Lapid’s decision to pass over Karnit Flug to lead the Bank of Israel.

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Opposition leader Shelly Yacimovich late Wednesday night raised the specter of
sexism in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s
decision to pass over Karnit Flug to lead the Bank of
Israel.

“Chauvinism? Arrogance? Lack of interest? Simply a puzzling form
of decisionmaking?” Yacimovich wrote in a late-night post on her Facebook page.
“They want to create some new star? Studies that were too objective when she was
an outstanding head of the research division at the Bank of Israel? Maybe all
the answers are correct.”

For the second time in as many months,
Netanyahu and Lapid shied away from the historic precedent of making Flug, a
front-runner for the position and currently acting governor, the first woman to
run the bank.

Since Stanley Fischer’s departure in June, Flug’s prospects
were thwarted by the renomination of former governor Jacob Frenkel, who
ultimately withdrew his candidacy, and then the selection of Bank Hapoalim chief
economist Leo Leiderman.

Upon the second rejection, Flug, who had served
as Fischer’s deputy since 2011, announced her resignation from the
bank.

Before he stepped down from his eight years as Bank of Israel
governor in June, Stanley Fischer made clear that he had full confidence in Flug
as a contender to succeed him.

“I would not have suggested appointing a
deputy governor I wasn’t convinced could act as governor when necessary,” he
said shortly after announcing his resignation.

Both Knesset Economic
Affairs Committee chairman Avishai Braverman and Knesset Finance Committee
member MK Gila Gamliel (Likud Beytenu) had publicly expressed support for her
becoming the bank’s first female governor.

“So that there won’t be
misunderstanding – Dr. Flug and I don’t share a similar economic worldview, just
as I disagreed greatly with Stanley Fischer,” Yacimovich wrote. Yet, she still
called her “the most talented, qualified woman for the job” and said that “her
resignation is understandable and unfortunate, and the shame is
theirs.”

But is sexism to blame? “If you’re asking whether there’s a
glass ceiling in politics then the answer is unquestionably yes,” says Chen
Friedberg, a researcher in the Israel Democracy Institute’s Political Reform
project.

A forthcoming study finds that women remain underrepresented in
government, particular in the higher echelons. Women represent about 50 percent
of the Israeli population, but only fill 20 percent of the Knesset’s seats, and
an even lower proportion of its ministerial positions.

While
discrimination is hard to rule out, she says, part of the problem is
social.

“Women may be less interested in getting ahead because they’re
wearing other hats – dealing with the house, watching the children,” she
said.

A female source who used to work in the Finance Ministry and
remains involved in the financial policy world, agrees that inequality exits,
but does not think it is intentional.

“There were incidents at very
high-level meetings where it was two women and 18 men, there’s no doubt,” she
said. “But I don’t think they look at it that way today. The situation is much
better than it used to be. This whole issue of chauvinism is
nonsense.”

Leiderman, she said, was chosen because he had stronger
experience in the private market, and not just the academic and policy world, as
Flug did.

“Yair Lapid is always trying to find women to
nominate.”

Friedberg agrees. In the specific case of Flug and Leiderman,
she offers, “I wouldn’t suspect that it’s because she’s a woman and he’s a man.
It’s hard to tie that specifically to the glass ceiling and the fact that she’s
a woman.”

Across the pond, US President Barack Obama faces a similar
choice; the front-runners to replace Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke are
former Treasury secretary Larry Summers and current Federal Reserve vice
chairwoman Janet Yellen.

The battle of the sexes in that race is only
heightened by Summers’s history; in 2006 he resigned as president of Harvard
after suggesting that women succeeded less often in math and science because
they were innately inferior in those fields.

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